


The Pebble

by Twelvefootmountaintroll



Series: Seven Stones [1]
Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Broh Week, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-29
Updated: 2012-07-29
Packaged: 2017-11-11 00:51:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/472642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Twelvefootmountaintroll/pseuds/Twelvefootmountaintroll
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bolin feels the Earth breathing and Iroh gains some perspective.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Pebble

**Author's Note:**

> This particular fic contains no underage sexual content or slash content, but future works in this series almost certainly will. Written for Broh Week on tumblr. Day one prompt: Comfort.

It’s the breathing that wakes Bolin.

Before he even opens his eyes, he can feel the earth responding to something outside. He feels the shifting through his fingertips, splayed lightly against the cool ground, but it resonates in his chest.

Moments like this are rare—moments when he can truly feel his connection to his element, to the Earth beneath him, and to the deepest, most basic parts of himself. Usually he feels only enough to reach out and bend when he needs it. (He reminds himself to ask Chief Beifong—no, she’s not Chief anymore, is she?—Master Beifong if she’ll teach him.) But sometimes he feels whole in a way that is beyond description. Sometimes...

The earth isn’t being bent, he can tell that much. Nor is it being artificially manipulated through one of the elements; no airbender or waterbender is pummeling or eroding it with their own element. Yet it has an energy it could only be given by a living creature. As Bolin lies there, and as the strange energy continues to hum where his back presses into the ground, he realizes it feels like breathing. The earth is breathing.

Shivering, he stands. Even wrapped in a thick quilt, he’s a little chilly out in the sky bison shed. He had insisted on the sleeping arrangement—there had been too many people and too many injured on Air Temple Island for him to justify taking up a warm bed inside the temple. His brother is there, too, but he slumbers on, undisturbed.

He leaves his shoes off. The ground outside will be even colder, but he wants to feel it pressing into him. He steps outside. His toes tell him to go to the courtyard.

The Bagua, seemingly central to the compound and yet open on all sides, is awash with moonlight. In the daylight it stands in clear contrast but the nighttime casts it in full greyscale; the trigrams bleed into the darkness and nearly disappear into the stone. But the circle of the taijitu remains cohesive, outlined by a figure pacing its edge.

The feeling of the earth breathing is stronger now. Whatever is going on, it is clearly coming from the person circling the taijitu.

Bolin reaches a respectful distance and stops. He’s still several paces back from the Bagua. He sits down to watch and his connection to his extended sense grows. The pacing figure—a man, Bolin guesses, by his stature and the breadth of his shoulders—doesn’t acknowledge him. But he can hear the breathing, now, just as he feels it.

It only takes a couple full circles for Bolin to catch on. It probably would have taken longer except it makes such perfect sense. The walker inhales as he paces the light edge of the yang until, reaching full lung capacity just as he reaches the top of the circle, he exhales along the dark yang. His breathing reverses once again at the bottom of the circle. He continues this way, as rhythmic as one of Mr Sato’s clockwork devices, each trip around the circle filling the space of exactly one breath.

And once Bolin sees this pattern, the patterning of the ground’s strange energy is painfully obvious. It’s responding to the breath of the walker. He breathes in and the earth stills, shrinks; he breathes out to its flowing expansion.

Bolin finds that without realizing it he has taken up the same respiration as the ground, complementing the other man’s. And without truly knowing why, he finds it feels natural to approach the taijitu.

When he is a few steps from the circle, he sees with some surprise that the man, the walker, is General Iroh. Still, he doesn’t question his instincts. He steps up smoothly to the bottom of the circle just as Iroh reaches the top. 

They walk together.

After a few minutes (or maybe longer; Bolin loses track of time) Iroh stops at the top of the circle. He exhales and presses his hands downward—a visualization of his settling chi. Bolin does the same after inhaling fully where he stands at the bottom of the circle.

“What brings you out here?” Iroh asks him.

“I could feel the earth responding to your breath,” Bolin says. “It was kind of amazing, actually.”

Iroh frowns. “What do you mean, ‘responding’?”

“It felt like it was breathing alongside you, except it was complementing you. Just like I was when I was across from you on the circle.”

“You’re still across from me on the circle,” Iroh points out.

“Well, yeah, but when we were walking!” Bolin says. “So how did you do that? You’re a firebender, and an amazing one at that. But that wasn’t firebending, let alone earthbending.”

“I was only using a controlled breathing technique my grandfather taught to my father. Firebenders must take their power from their breath, but they must also know how to feel the equilibrium of the world around them and even manipulate it. Perhaps your bending was responding to the fluctuations brought by my breath.”

“You can use bending to manipulate the equilibrium?” Bolin’s eyes go wide. “That’s so weird.”

“You don’t know much about bending theory, do you?” Iroh asks wryly.

Bolin shrugs. “I’m mostly self-taught. But now that you know why I’m out here... Why are _you_ out here?”

Iroh tilts his head back to gaze at the stars. His face is bathed in moonlight, highlighting his cheeks and brow. When he speaks, he addresses the heavens.

“I couldn’t sleep. We took back Republic City, but at a great cost. A cost that might become personal when the details of my fleet’s defeat reach my superiors.”

“What? Don’t be ridiculous! I mean, yeah, you were pretty much destroyed by that first attack, but you totally redeemed yourself. I’ve never seen moves like the ones you pulled. You took down an entire fleet of those flying machines by yourself! There was no way we could’ve done it without you.”

“I’m thankful for your appreciation, but I’m afraid the situation may be viewed in a different light. We never should have let the Equalists gain a foothold in the first place. The damage they did to our ships and crew was catastrophic.”

“General Iroh, sir, if I may...”

Iroh glances down. Bolin is holding out his hand. The general gives him a quizzical look.

Bolin’s finger twitches and suddenly Iroh has lost his footing. He twists to catch himself but manages only to make his landing position more awkward. And before he can react, there is Bolin’s hand, offering help up.

“What was that?” Iroh asks angrily as he stands.

Bolin looks a bit sheepish as he holds out his hand again. This time, he nudges Iroh’s hand and places something in it.

“I may not know the theory, but I know how to use my bending,” Bolin says. “When you’re in the pro-bending ring, you have to take every advantage and make it yours. I just took you down with a pebble.”

Iroh inspects the small stone Bolin placed in his hand.

“Well, Amon didn’t have a pebble. He had a boulder. Several boulders, in fact. A whole rockslide!” Bolin throws his hands in the air. “You, sir, were the pebble that sent Mr Sato sprawling on his face. Asami and I made sure he couldn’t get back up.”

“Bolin, do you have a point?” The pebble is cool on Iroh’s fingers.

“Be proud of your pebble-ness!” Bolin stops and frowns. “No, that doesn’t sound right. But you know what I mean. A pebble can take a situation that looks like defeat, like being crushed under your heel, and turn it into victory. Its humble position at the start doesn’t take away from its winning in the end.”

Iroh cracks a little smile. “So you think the defeat of my fleet of ships was like being crushed under Amon’s heel?”

“Exactly.” Bolin beams before breaking into a huge yawn. “Oh, wow. It must be really late. I should turn in so I’m not totally useless in the morning. I need my beauty sleep, you know! Goodnight, General.”

“Goodnight.”

Sleep comes easily to Iroh. He dreams of jade stones.


End file.
